


((OOC)) Welcome to Doki Doki Infinite Choices AU

by CreativityTheEmotion



Series: Doki Doki Infinite Choices AU [1]
Category: Doki Doki Literature Club! (Visual Novel), Homestuck, The Stanley Parable, Yandere Simulator (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, ~ATH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26596423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreativityTheEmotion/pseuds/CreativityTheEmotion
Summary: An out-of-universe fanfic that will help you understand the Doki Doki Infinite Choices AU, any fics written for it and how you can contribute to it better!
Series: Doki Doki Infinite Choices AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654861
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	1. Intro and IRL background

> It's just a little hole. It wasn't too bright.  
>  It was too deep.  
>  Stretching forever into everything.  
>  A hole of **infinite choices**.  
>  I realize now, that I wasn't looking in.  
>  I was looking out.  
>  And he, on the other side, was looking in.
> 
>   * _Monika, "Hole in Wall"_
> 

> 
> With a flick of her pen, the lost finds her way.  
>  In a world of **infinite choices** , behold this special day.
> 
>   * _Monika, "Happy End"_
> 

> 
> But in this world of **infinite choices**  
>  What will it take just to find that special day?
> 
>   * _Monika, "Your Reality"_
> 


Welcome, everyone. Welcome to the **Doki Doki Infinite Choices AU** (although, I accept the shortenings **Infinite Choices AU** and **ICAU** , too). I'm your host and gracious leader, CreativityTheEmotion, and while I'm incredibly happy for the attention that the various Infinite Choices AU fics have received, so far, I think we're at a time where I need to establish some ground rules for the RP environment.

But first, some history. While I _was_ in the Homestuck fandom since 2010, and even though I _did_ entertain some fantasies of playing Sburb, these had largely subsided by the point the Sburb Glitch FAQ released in 2012, spawning the subsequent Replay Value AU. Thus, I pretty much completely missed the hype surrounding it and the storied RP stories, and though I _knew_ of the fic, I never really got into reading it.

All of this, though, would change in January 2020. By chance, I was looking through the fic archive of a friend from the days of old, crossed over a Replay Value AU fan addition, and from there, got into the Sburb Glitch FAQ itself. I was delighted to see just how much worldbuilding had been put into Sburb, and I was further delighted to see that some Replay Value AU communities, though they may no longer actively RP, still survive to this day.

However, my present-day self just wasn't _interested_ in any sort of Sburb-related roleplay, Replay Value AU or otherwise, because it would involve me essentially fleshing out an RP character complete with a history of Sburb sessions and classpects (and some communities do have a pretty rigorous process of back-and-forth between you and the moderators of the RP in question). That being said, the _idea_ of capturing just how much the Sburb Glitch FAQ threw at you, but with something else, persisted.

This is where Doki Doki Literature Club! comes into play. I joined that particular fandom in May 2018, and throughout the summer, had plenty of projects related to them, which saw varying degrees of success. However, by January 2020, I wasn't really doing anything of note; merely _itching_ to do something.

The idea for that something came in a very simple reasoning: many DDLC fans, as prompted by the game's meta nature, discussed "the game" as an entity on its own, something that has a script but can deviate from that script due to character actions, and whether or not it's worthwhile, in-universe, to consider the game characters "alive". However, that reasoning came from a purely theoretical perspective, with people knowing that in the end, DDLC is a static game, and no one dared to explore what such a game would mean, technologically - and as you can imagine it, writing a guide in the style of the Sburb Glitch FAQ was an obvious choice.

And thus, once I seized the opportunity in plain sight, I suddenly got hooked and started fleshing out whatever the world might turn out to be. Throughout a month, I developed the fic to the point where there would be a substantial amount even if I abandoned it outright, and on Valentine's Day, I posted the end result, which we all now know as **_Doki Doki Literature Club!: Bugs, Glitches and Exploits for Dummies_** (<https://archiveofourown.org/works/22681066> or <https://dokidocs.net/glitch_faq/>).

For the most part, I was happy in writing Bugs, Glitches and Exploits on my own. I definitely was _open_ to ~~and maybe even daydreaming about~~ the idea of an ad-hoc RP, consisting of IC comments and guest chapters, spawning in the comments section of my fic, much like in the days of Sburb Glitch FAQ, but even if nobody had contributed, I would have been happy with the fic, as well as spinoff fics which I grouped together under the Infinite Choices AU label, as they were.

However, now that people _are_ contributing with IC comments, fan additions and IC comments _on_ those fan additions, I am suddenly faced with a mixed sense of dread and responsibility. There is a huge likelihood that details that aren't in the spirit of the Infinite Choices AU would nevertheless be canonized, solely through fan stories and without my consent, and thus, the entire RP environment would be reduced to something I thoroughly hate, and I would stop being motivated to write my own fics telling my own stories.

With all this in mind, with this document, I hope to establish some ground rules. Even if you disregard them as stupid and decide to form your own brand of Infinite Choices AU instead, I would still like certain details of _my_ universe, that simply can't be established through epistolary fics, to be clear, so that, if nothing else, I can keep doing the things that I did from February to August.

But otherwise, if you're happy with my rules, I welcome you with open arms.

Lastly: on how to reach me. If you ever contribute a fanwork, honestly the best way for me to see it is if you tag it with "~ATH", already a common tag per AO3 and the de facto standard among both my fics and fan additions; don't worry about fics from ages and ages ago using it. There _might_ be a chance of us getting a more specific tag, like "Alternate Universe - Doki Doki Infinite Choices", but I'm not holding my breath.

That being said, if any serious projects, requiring serious collaboration, are ever to arise within the AU, I would like them to take place in my Discord server. In fact, I think it's only right of me to mention the Discord server anyway, as though we're still a growing community, there is the occasional discussion going on. Here you go: <https://discord.gg/hB7mnSm>


	2. AU background and in-universe media

Though it might seem, especially for the DDLC fandom given the name I gave the AU, that the Doki Doki Infinite Choices AU is an AU of DDLC, it is, in fact, best thought of as an AU of real life instead. In fact, if you're primarily interested in the AU due to stories for The Stanley Parable, I wouldn't really bat an eye if you called the AU "The Stanley Parable Infinite Choices AU" instead, and same for other fandoms that it might breach.

At any rate, the Infinite Choices AU, whichever brand you're sticking with, is primarily told through descriptions of various in-universe media and their fandoms. These will be sorted in order of importance: first, to the Infinite Choices AU canon as established by me, and then, fan additions.

Oh, and please, _please_ pay attention to the media that I mention, at the very end, that is defined by non-existence; if it's ever mentioned in a comment, it's probably safe to say that it's OOC.

But at any rate, if you come to the Infinite Choices AU, you'll be delighted to know that we have such treats as:

  * **_Doki Doki Literature Club!_** (Team Salvato, 2017) - easily the star of the show. An indie game made by Dan Salvato, using the revolutionary technology of ~ATH, it is the DDLC fandom that was first forced to confront the idea that their game might not be the cutesy visual novel that it purports to be, and that, due to internal disagreements, essentially split in twain. 
    * The **mainstream fandom** of DDLC, as it's usually known (consisting of communities on Reddit, Discord, Amino, etc.), have decided to largely ignore any sort of "truth" pertaining to their game, instead choosing to focus on the characters, drawing fanart, writing fanfic and creating "mainstreamer mods", which resemble your typical visual novel much more closely.
    * The **hacking community** of DDLC, primarily consisting of highly organized and tight-knit groups (that I would like to address more in detail in chapter 5), have made it their task to fully understand the inner workings of DDLC, to learn the language ~ATH and to see if it could be used to fundamentally revolutionize the computing world.



For more about DDLC in the Infinite Choices AU, I have a fic that's 100K words and counting, **_Doki Doki Literature Club!: Bugs, Glitches and Exploits for Dummies_** (<https://archiveofourown.org/works/22681066> or <https://dokidocs.net/glitch_faq/>).

In the fic above, I also mention some other works of media that, hopefully, will give you a feel for what the Infinite Choices AU is all about:

  * **_Portrait of Markov_** (Team Salvato, ???) - Salvato's next game. Details are sparse, but what _is_ known for certain is that it will be a VN with significantly smaller ambitions than DDLC (including a non-meta story), and though it's been kept under the wraps, it's likely that Salvato won't be repurposing his ~ATH code.
  * **_Minecraft_** (Mojang, 2011) - for the most part, exactly what it's known to be in real life, with the exception of the April Fools update for 2020, known as 20w14∞. The update, which includes ~ATH code sourced from a fanmade mod called Infinite Features, is a rather interesting observation on its own, but otherwise, doesn't bear any significance to the game's main development track.
  * **_Untitled Yandere Game_** (YandereDev, 2014-???) (known as _Yandere Simulator_ IRL) - a game in the anime genre much like DDLC, which has gained a significant amount of notoriety: though the game made a lot of people fall in love with the yandere trope, the childish nature of YandereDev has been laughed at time and time again. This includes an incident, around New Year 2018, wherein YandereDev attempted to improve the game code using ~ATH, but gave up after his computer exploded, and instead, attacked Salvato.
    * **_Life of a Yandere Simp_** (Bacchus, 2020 December) - attempts to one-up YandereDev, due to perceived problems with his game and demeanor, span to at least 2017. However, being in the same bubble of people willing to expose and dox others, none of the so-called "yandere games" have been particularly long-lived, causing a phenomenon known as the "yandere game curse". That being said, LoaYS, started as a joke project and eventually involving yours truly, has somehow managed to at least see the light of day as a complete game.
    * _Note: While Yandere Simulator has definitely become an integral part of my own variant of Infinite Choices AU, as of right now (September 30, 2020), I've officially had too much regarding everything, and will not really be keeping up anymore._
  * **_Wreck-It Ralph II_** (Disney, 2018) and **_Frozen: Into the Unknown_** (Disney, 2019) (known as _Ralph Breaks the Internet_ and _Frozen II_ respectively IRL) - those are the movies' names in the AU. Nothing else has changed about them; I just wish to inform you that those are the movies' names in the AU. 



In addition, a rather interesting entry, without a good real life equivalent, crops up in a spinoff fic:

  * **_Little Monster_** (???, 1988) - an anime developed right before the anime crash of 1989-1995, which didn't see the best financial success, and the studio for which disbanded in 1993. Mostly known to be watched by those who have completely surrendered their life to anime already, but as it just so happens, one of those who watched it was a certain Dan Salvato, who would name a character in DDLC after the protagonist of Little Monster. If you're interested in more, I actually have a larger document outlining what I've developed about this; please DM me on Discord.



Lastly, this deserves a special mention all on its own, because there's no good category to put it in:

  * **_Sburb_** (Skaianet, 2009) - a game that actually never received a release or any sort of development in the Infinite Choices AU, but the existence of which in other universes, as well as the fact that it's been developed in ~ATH, has nevertheless been picked up by DDLC hackers, who have endlessly speculated about it. None of the speculation has painted a reliable picture that's anything like Sburb in Homestuck, though.



Anyway, onto features introduced with fan additions:

  * **_The Stanley Parable_** (Galactic Cafe/Crows Crows Crows, 2013) - a game that, back in its day, was highly renowned and praised for its mindfuck resulting from a relatively short game that nevertheless managed to pack quite a few endings. However, the fact that the game includes ~ATH code wasn't discovered until 2020, largely owing to difficulties in decompiling Source Engine games; once it was discovered, though, it brought a renaissance to both DDLC hackers and Stanley fans.



For more about The Stanley Parable in the Infinite Choices AU, zeroBound has a smaller yet still excellent writeup, **_The Stanley Parable: Glitches, Exploits, and Quirks for the Common Stanley_** (<https://archiveofourown.org/works/25851367>). I especially recommend this one to folk who are interested in a much darker take on Infinite Choices AU, complete with risk of death and insanity.

Finally finally finally, this **must** be addressed if you wanna adhere to my flavor of Infinite Choices AU, and _especially_ if you're going to make references to my fic: certain works of fiction **don't** exist in the Infinite Choices AU and **don't** have directly comparable equivalents. These include:

  * **_Homestuck_** (Andrew Hussie/What Pumpkin, 2009-2016) - the reasoning being that if Homestuck existed, it would pollute any web search for ~ATH. Instead, I imagine Hussie being primarily still involved with Team Special Olympics, never creating MS Paint Adventures, though he still comes into contact with a certain Toby Fox. That being said, turns of phrase unique to Homestuck, such as "corpse party", "Mobius double reacharound" and usernames styled like chumhandles, are a small but definitive stroke in the Infinite Choices AU picture.
  * **_Little Monsters_** (Vestron Pictures, 1989) - starring Howie Mandel and Fred Savage, you might know this movie as being discussed in the very first pesterlog in Homestuck, which was based on a real-life chatlog in Hussie's archive. Long story short, I needed to reinterpret said chatlog to involve Salvato instead for a spinoff fic, and I decided that a B-list anime is a funnier target than a B-list movie, although the apple juice scene somehow made it in with the only changes being character overhauls.



And that's it, I suppose. If you're introducing a work of fiction to the Infinite Choices AU, though it's not necessary, it's a good idea for it to introduce gimmicks similar to the ones outlined above.

That being said, I know a particular gimmick that you want to introduce. I know because it's honestly a Frequently Asked Question.


	3. The elephant in the room: games made with ~ATH

**_FAQ: Would it make sense for [game] to include ~ATH code in the Infinite Choices AU?_ **

Though I might not like it, this is _the_ definitive question that has been defining the Infinite Choices AU; many of its fans also happen to be Replay Value AU fans, and therefore, are mostly interested in how I dissect a game, with no regard to what the particular game is, as well as ~ATH itself. Therefore, in order to get the maximum personal investment out of the Infinite Choices AU, people want to retain the ~ATH weirdness that they know the Sburb Glitch FAQ for, but substitute DDLC for a personal favorite of their own.

However, since ~ATH is a core part of the Infinite Choices AU, it and games made using it have received the most worldbuilding attention from me, and therefore, I happen to have very strong opinions on what is a suitable target to turn into a game based on ~ATH. This is not to say that I'm completely reluctant to your ideas if they fit in the universe well - after all, The Stanley Parable was never presented to me prior to the fic in question - but in the very least, you must think the way I do, in part, and just look at what sort of game it is. Is it a console game or a PC game, and how easy is it to look into its code? Is it an indie game or a triple-A game? How does the timeframe work out? etc.

For example, here are a couple lines of thought that I might have:

  * **_If the game is easily decompilable:_** Doki Doki Hackerverse (a faction within the fic, that I will get to in chapter 5) regularly look through games other than DDLC, and would have found out long ago, and Walkthrough Author (the nickname I gave my own character in the story, who otherwise shares my nickname) wouldn't cite DDLC and Sburb (and Minecraft snapshot 20w14∞) as the only ~ATH games. 
    * Among game engines (for PC games) that are "easily decompilable", I've given examples of Unity, Game Maker: Studio and Ren'Py.
  * **_If the game isn't easily decompilable (e.g. if it's a console game):_** well, it's a black box and we will never know, until and unless a decompiler for the engine/emulator for the console is developed. 
    * Among game engines (for PC games) that are "not easily decompilable", I've given examples of Source and Unreal.
  * **_If it's a triple-A title:_** a lot of money hangs in imbalance, and no one's gonna try and introduce an experimental programming language into the code, to say nothing of the lack of sufficiently skilled devs.
  * **_If it's particularly early in the computing age:_** Walkthrough Author specifically talks in the ~ATH installation chapter about what sorts of machines can and can't run the ~ATH compiler and ~ATH code, and while personal computers, even those not compatible with the IBM PC, are generally fine, consoles, which often execute machine code byte-for-byte from cartridges, are not.



Do you think you have what it takes to analyze those questions yourself? Then go for it. However, if you just want a fun exploration, it's best to take it through me, first.

That being said, don't be discouraged if I say no; even outside of your pet favorite game featuring ~ATH, there are other ways to contribute to the Infinite Choices AU, and if all else fails, you can always just write a non-canon fic that does not even make an attempt to adhere to my continuity.

But, you know, just saying. You step in my court, you gotta play by my rules, as much as is reasonable.


	4. Addressing ~ATH itself and ~ATH guides written for the Replay Value AU

When sketching out my own Infinite Choices AU flagship fic, I decided that its fictitious author, in addition to establishing what the big deal with DDLC is, would also try and delve into the syntax of ~ATH and how to get started in coding it. Therefore, research inevitably led me to check if this ground had been treaded before, and unsurprisingly, it had, especially by Replay Value AU folk back in the day.

And, I don't really mean this offensively, but ~ATH fic written for the Replay Value AU just misses the point.

In Homestuck, ~ATH is repeatedly established as an insufferable programming language, with insufferable syntax and runtime limitations. The core aspect of the basic structure of the language, what I've unofficially termed as the ~ATH loop, is waiting for the death of a particular being, and usually, the death of the being in question is not coming in any reasonable timeframe. Therefore, _any_ sort of coding in ~ATH requires trickery, such as colored code and loops nesting in alien ways, in ways seen in the only canon code sample that really gives us a sense of what ~ATH is all about, the famous Mobius Double Reacharound Virus written by Sollux and sent to Karkat (or perhaps, you recognize it as `zz_silenceallopposition.~ath` from the Monika After Story GitHub page?).

With that being said, let's address the few ~ATH fics in the Homestuck category that I could find.

First and foremost, let's address the **_Sburb Glitch FAQ_** itself, by the man, the myth, the legend Gods­Gift­To­Grinds, which probably requires no introduction at all. While it doesn't _try_ to be a ~ATH guide, it still serves to include two ~ATH worldbuilding details which I kinda built the Infinite Choices AU version of ~ATH around: a) Sburb is entirely coded in ~ATH, and thus, results in a large number of bugs and glitches, and b) one must really pay attention to not mix up `NOT` (causing something not to happen) and `NON` (causing the opposite of said something to happen). Overall, I like this. But what else can I say? The Sburb Glitch FAQ is a masterpiece, through and through.

Then, there's **_~ATH and You; A Primer_** by openSystem, originating in 2012 and explicitly tagged as Replay Value AU. First of all, it completely misunderstands the most basic ~ATH program, the one with `~ATH(THIS)`; whereas in Homestuck, this would never halt, in the fic, this, coupled with `THIS.DIE()`, results in instant execution, completely going against the principle of ~ATH coding being insufferable. Then, we have console input and output, as well as external ~ATH scripts (referred to as "ossuaries"), being dealt with in a _very_ imperative language-y way. Overall, wouldn't recommend.

Then, there's the **_Extreme Program Development for Dummies_** series by someone who orphaned the fics in question, originating in 2012-2013, again placing it in the height of Replay Value AU. Unfortunately, it's _not_ set in the Replay Value AU, instead opting for a highly futuristic Earth setting wherein ~ATH is a common technology (which is such an "ugh" setting). Anyway, brushing that aside, the language is highlighted as having a specific purpose, and a large portion of Sburb code being written in ^CAKE instead, which contradicts the Sburb Glitch FAQ, which is why I never got much out of the fic in the first place. For what it's worth, the fact that it actually has a compiler you can download is pretty cool, though.

Lastly, there's **_The Alternian Memo_** by DaneelsSoul, from 2016. It doesn't really _try_ to teach ~ATH, instead just giving a general overview by folk who are documenting the trolls, but I like the details included, such as "it took analysts with understanding of extra-dimensional spectral theory to prove Turing completeness". Unfortunately, the fic was mostly technobabble that didn't explain anything, and something that doesn't teach ~ATH in the first place just wouldn't do.

As you can imagine, for ~ATH fics in the Infinite Choices AU, I wanted a completely new standard.

I think I was able to establish what the standard is all about in Bugs, Glitches and Exploits, with alien interweaving loops. In fact, I even wanted to do something that would be equivalent to the Borromean rings in knot theory (three loops that are linked as a triplet but not pairwise), but just couldn't find a way to properly do it with strictly linear code.

That being said, I think it would be for the best if I moved away from trying to establish ~ATH as a thing, focusing on other things I want to do exclusively, and leave it up to fans to continue my ~ATH tutorial. I'm still watching to see if you adhere to my standard, though.


	5. NPCs and factions I would like to keep control of

This is not to say that a character of yours can't hail from either of these factions. However, the actions of the faction as a whole, and their involvement in uncovering the mysteries of ~ATH, are honestly best left up to me.

So far, there are two factions in this category:

  * **_Doki Doki Hackerverse!_** \- the main and currently active forum for DDLC hacking affairs. While Walkthrough Author has referred to their material extensively in order to produce her document, unfortunately, the day it was published, she received a ban for "five (5) crucial mistakes about the inner structure of DDLC percistent [sic] throughout the entire treatise". This also resulted in her copy of Monika After Story being locked out, due to an unclear but existing connection between the Hackerverse admins and the Monika After Story developers. So far, they have been characterized as snobbish, refusing to entertain newcomers who want to gain a better understanding of DDLC in general. They also actively take part in dissecting various other games to see if they contain ~ATH code.
  * **_#TeamStats_** \- a highly cosmopolitan group of DDLC fans, including both mainstreamers and hackers. They have conducted large-scale surveys of the DDLC fandom, collecting statistics on playthroughs, and published annual reports on Hackerverse. They also, once The Stanley Parable was discovered to be a ~ATH game, quickly reorganized and published preliminary reports regarding that game and what sort of choices can be made to it, which took them quicker than the DDLC reports due to a Stanley playthrough lasting minutes instead of DDLC's hours. The reports are written in fully formatted LaTeX, and are essentially completely impersonal; I reserve the right to write out what that would look like.



If there's a specific action that you want either of them, as a collective, to undertake, please please _please_ pass it through me, first.


	6. Addendum: If you're coming from the Replay Value AU

While the Doki Doki Infinite Choices AU was definitely conceived with Homestuck's Replay Value AU in mind, and includes references such as the language ~ATH to that extent, the primary target audience for Bugs, Glitches and Exploits was never intended to be the actual Replay Value AU folk, as I presumed the AU to be "dead" so to speak. Instead, I targeted DDLC fans who were trying to debate "the game", how the script works and whether or not the other Dokis can be considered sentient, who were looking for definitive answers at the game's story level and _not_ the level above, in which the game is fully scripted and there's nothing that makes any Doki, Monika included, special.

However, especially since quite a few of the kudos on Bugs, Glitches and Exploits are chumhandles, and one of them is none other than liquidCitrus, quite possibly the second most important person to the development of the Replay Value AU, herself, it would be a _bit of an understatement_ to state that Bugs, Glitches and Exploits has struck a chord with Replay Value AU folk. Therefore, I feel I need to address the Replay Value AU folk specifically and try and critically analyze the Infinite Choices AU from their perspective, just to see what works for them, what doesn't and what only works for specific Infinite Choices AU fics.

The Replay Value AU originates from the fandom of the Sburb Glitch FAQ, which, from its very first chapters, was never intended to form a community around itself. Instead, the fic solely focused on expanding upon the game mechanics of Sburb, the game that served as the catalyst of the plot of Homestuck, but which otherwise was kind of put to the side by Hussie in order to focus on things like aliens and teenage interactions. In fact, I can imagine a fair amount of Homestuck fans being excited by Sburb, finding that its core mechanics such as the "growth quest" are totally unnecessary in order to win, being disappointed and turning to fanfic such as the Sburb Glitch FAQ.

Of course, within the Homestuck context, most people only play Sburb once, and therefore, the Sburb Glitch FAQ needed an explanation as to why the fictitious author knows so much. The explanation came in the form of the Advanced Game Theory chapter, in which the fictitious author spells out that the Ultimate Reward at the end of a Sburb game is glitched for him, as well as numerous other folk, who find themselves having to replay the game over and over, and in order not to go insane, they form a network, tentatively called "Replayers".

While it may not have been the Advanced Game Theory chapter specifically that made the Replay Value AU the phenomenon that it was, it's still undeniable that people roleplaying in the comments of the Sburb Glitch FAQ saw themselves as Replayers, as the fictitious author's friends and buddies, and that they all worked towards a common goal: explaining what Sburb is, to the fullest.

At any rate, years in the future, but not many, those very folk end up discovering the Doki Doki Infinite Choices AU. (Let's presume that they aren't familiar with DDLC at all, for the sake of the argument.) What do they see?

Well, ignoring the whole "they want to see a pet favorite of theirs dissected in the same way" issue that I already discussed, they see a rather familiar pattern: a tight-knit community, this time known as Hackerverse, trying to dissect a game to its fullest, though not because their life depends on it; rather, they're intrigued by the underlying technology, which is why ~ATH receives a much wider spotlight in Bugs, Glitches and Exploits as opposed to the Sburb Glitch FAQ. In addition, in this case, the fictitious author isn't "in the know" so to say, and the community isn't focused on producing guides to help each other; rather, the community expects all the knowledge to be shared almost telepathically, and excommunicate the fictitious author for daring to think otherwise.

Needless to say, the sort of person who identifies with the Replayers _wouldn't_ identify with Hackerverse, and instead, side with the fictitious author and assist in the documentation efforts. This then leads to a further conflict, where the fictitious author presumes that the comments aren't there with good intentions, which further develops the sideplot and helps establish Bugs, Glitches and Exploits for what it is: a story where the documentation efforts must move aside for the fictitious author's personal biases.

At any rate, one more thing to discuss in this category is the "darkness" of settings. Needless to say, the Sburb Glitch FAQ is _very_ dark: the Replayers are trapped in mortal peril for the rest of their lives and only find comfort in each other. In fact, I have reason to believe that it was too dark, even for its original author, which is why the Replay Value AU switched hands in the way it did.

In contrast, Bugs, Glitches and Exploits is very vanilla. Much like in Homestuck whenever ~ATH is breached, all those darn computer explosions are meant to be humorous "haha you don't know what you're doing" moments, and the subplot of Hackerverse trying to sabotage Walkthrough Author's copy of Monika After Story, while it _does_ add to the drama, is nothing more than an outgrowth of the former. This, therefore, is the third and final aspect which the Replay Value AU folk might not particularly appreciate.

However, an interesting middle ground I _must_ observe at this point is zeroBound's Common Stanley. While it started out with the exact same tone as Bugs, Glitches and Exploits (being inspired by it much more than it was inspired by the Sburb Glitch FAQ), with the side effects chapter, things suddenly took a turn for the darker, and the in-universe comment about a fan writing down pages upon pages of "heavily abbreviated Polish" further helped cement the true dark nature of ~ATH.

While the person who just wanted to write vanilla game exploration, like GodsGiftToGrinds or myself, would definitely be perturbed, and while my first instinct was definitely to write a "this is not what I intended and here's why" comment, instead, I took a few precious hours to think about the _true_ nature of both the Replay Value and the Infinite Choices AUs, and came to the conclusion that it is, in fact, something that the Replay Value AU folk might appreciate, even if I, the Infinite Choices AU founder, wouldn't.

When I talked about it, I compared it to the FOSS paradigm of "benevolent dictator for life": the founder of a particular FOSS project who, as time goes on and the project expands, takes on the role of the "arbitrator" who has to resolve disagreements between the community members. However, these disagreements _must_ be resolved in the eye of the project, not the founder, because if the founder happened to be a dick, there was exactly nothing stopping the community from "forking" the project and moving on from the original founder.

That is why I must declare that while I'll continue to be on the top of the Infinite Choices AU, both as the founder and as the "DM" so to speak, my decisions will always be motivated by critical analyses like these and _not_ my personal opinions. While I still have to maintain the creative integrity of my own fic, as far as the Infinite Choices AU as a whole goes, my word means nothing if it contradicts what people coming to the AU, such as Replay Value AU folk, expect from documents by any author.

And that's it. Hopefully, it clarifies at least some things in the angles I approached it from.


	7. Character bios - template and elaboration

In general, I would like to keep the Infinite Choices AU very laissez-faire. You can totally participate by starting to write in-character comments right away, and there is simply no need to establish yourself as a character if you _really_ don't want to. That being said, for everyone's convenience, if you've spent any significant amount of time contributing to Infinite Choices AU material, it would help if we got to know your character, their backstory (or reluctance to share it) and what they are all about.

Therefore, I'm going to keep the form relatively simple:

 ** _Nickname and pseud (AO3):_**   
**_Out-of-universe nickname:_** (if you're commenting without a pseud and largely portraying a self-insert character, it helps to create a name to distinguish them from yourself; perhaps best explained by bios I'm going to list)   
**_Pronouns:_**   
**_Favorite media:_** (must not include Homestuck or anything else I listed as media that doesn't exist in the Infinite Choices AU)   
**_Backstory and involvement:_**   
**_Writing/commenting style:_**


	8. Character bios - CreativityTheEmotion | Walkthrough Author

**_Nickname and pseud (AO3):_** CreativityTheEmotion  
**_Out-of-universe nickname:_** Walkthrough Author (came about as an OOC reviewer addressed "the author of the walkthrough" and it stuck, despite not being accurate)  
**_Pronouns:_** she/her/hers  
**_Favorite media:_** Currently involved with Disney and Pixar movies (especially Inside Out), Steven Universe and DDLC. However, historically, has been fascinated with Source Engine games such as Portal, Portal 2, The Stanley Parable and The Beginner's Guide. Also, between July and September 2020, had her popcorn out for Untitled Yandere Game drama when she was in the mood, but eventually was pushed over the edge, and now, has decided to cut out any Untitled Yandere Game/fangame discourse from her life.  
**_Backstory and involvement:_** First joined the DDLC fandom in May 2018, and got a copy of Monika After Story running near immediately. In the summer, created a few projects that accidentally pit the mainstreamers and hackers against each other. For the most part, she has seen things from the hacker point of view but hung out in mainstreamer spaces. This, however, changed in late 2019, when she began lurking in hacker spaces, and by Valentine's Day 2020, had enough material to write a guide to DDLC of her own. Originally intending to convert mainstreamers to hackers, she found herself ridiculed by hackers instead, and thus, has essentially been operating outside the DDLC fandom altogether, with only reviewers and other guide authors to keep her company.  
**_Writing/commenting style:_** Often uses colorful metaphors that only help pad her word count, often referring to these as "totally-not-ramblings". Can be a bit blunt and insensitive towards ideas that she rejects. Rather than document the game she set out to document, she actually prefers to write about computer science in general. _Incredibly_ insecure about being labeled a weeb. 

* * *

In-universe material written by CreativityTheEmotion so far:

  * **_Doki Doki Literature Club!: Bugs, Glitches and Exploits for Dummies_** (<https://archiveofourown.org/works/22681066> or <https://dokidocs.net/glitch_faq/>)




	9. Character bios - SoleilMeansSun | Friendly Hacker

**_Nickname and pseud (AO3):_** Soleil­Means­Sun   
**_Out-of-universe nickname:_** Friendly Hacker (came about as Walkthrough Author dismissed the idea of a friendly DDLC hacker altogether)   
**_Pronouns:_** she/her/hers   
**_Favorite media:_** Anything sci-fi or fantasy she'll enjoy, but some specifics include the Final Fantasy series, Metroid, RWBY and Black Clover. She also enjoys dark psychological thrillers like DDLC or Selector Infected Wixoss.   
**_Backstory and involvement:_** Starting off as a hacker in the early days of the DDLC hacker community but drifting away from the community as it began to develop its toxic behavior, Soleil aims to learn and use ~ATH to help aid her in her creation of human-like AI, in order to better understand the human psyche and how different situations cause different people to react.   
**_Writing/commenting style:_** Her style is a formal style mixed with charm. She sprinkles in a few jokes and metaphors, enough to make her writing less bland, but also not too much, so that she avoids completely invalidating her points. She also has a signature sign out phrase that she puts at the end of every comment and article. 


	10. Character bios - SnomBaby (SoleilMeansSun's 2nd character)

**_Nickname and pseud (AO3):_** Snom­Baby (Soleil­Means­Sun)   
**_Out-of-universe nickname:_** N/A   
**_Pronouns:_** they/them/their/theirs   
**_Favorite media:_** Super Paper Mario, Darwin's Game (The Anime), Xenoblade Chronicles, Future Diary, Undertale, Pokemon, DDLC and other various games and anime.   
**_Backstory and involvement:_** Only recently got involved in the idea of ~ATH. They stumbled upon Doki Doki pretty late compared to everyone else, and immediately got obsessed. They then did some research on ~ATH, mainly through Walkthrough Author and what little she wrote about the language. Since at the time there was little in the ways of a guide to the language, they set upon learning it themselves. After getting the basics down, Snom accidentally stumbled upon ~ATH's more magical qualities, and instantly became obsessed with them, for both their entertainment and practical uses.   
**_Writing/commenting style:_** Various lengthy metaphors, lots of hyperbole, and sprinkle some emoticons in for good measure. Snom's style is very informal, and also contains various jokes and jabs to some of their favorite characters, such as repeating the word chaos, and making various bone puns. 


	11. Character bios - zeroBound | The Guide

**_Nickname and pseud (AO3):_** zero­Bound   
**_Out-of-universe nickname:_** The Guide (created to be stylistically similar to "The Narrator" and "The Curator", the names for the narrating characters of The Stanley Parable)   
**_Pronouns:_** he/him/his   
**_Favorite media:_** Enjoys indie games, like The Stanley Parable, Undertale, Dweller's Empty Path, DDLC, Starbound, and others. Also a fan of Back to the Future and science fiction media that involves time travel.   
**_Backstory and involvement:_** Was a sporadic contributor to The Stanley Parable Wiki between 2015 and 2020, until the Hackerverse discovered ~ATH in The Stanley Parable. The schizophrenic and disorganized updates and discoveries were difficult and often contradictory, causing strife in the wiki. To circumvent this, he decided to create a separate document for these new details.   
**_Writing/commenting style:_** Generally uses sterile, factual language, with occasional digressions. Uses semicolons heavily, because they're the best punctuation mark; anyone that thinks otherwise is not invited to his birthday party next year. 

* * *

In-universe material written by zero­Bound so far:

  * **_The Stanley Parable: Glitches, Exploits, and Quirks for the Common Stanley_** ([https://​archive​ofourown.​org/​works/​25851367](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25851367))




End file.
